


Once Upon A Hell (Never To Return)

by CurrlyQ (AlorevFritz)



Category: No Fandom
Genre: F/F, Original Character(s), Original work - Freeform, training facility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 06:31:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3109589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlorevFritz/pseuds/CurrlyQ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Have you ever wondered where the love of your life is? Do they ever not respond to your texts or letters or calls?<br/>Do you ever wonder if they have been killed or kidnapped because they have been ignoring you?<br/>In this case?<br/>Yes.<br/>The love of my live has disappeared off the face of the planet.<br/>I have one lead, she was on her way to a new academy when we last said good bye.<br/>Then she left me standing on the end of our drive way one month ago.<br/>Now I'm standing in front of this academy, the sun in the sky and very few clouds to be seen.<br/>How would anyone ever think this was a bad place.<br/>How would anyone ever work here.<br/>How would anyone ever willingly walk into this house of nightmares.<br/>How would anyone ever think I would come to this place to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon A Hell (Never To Return)

It was bright and sunny as the new girl stepped toward her new school, the clouds didn't match her mood.  
She had left everything behind to come to this school, she only knew of one reason why she came here, she was following someone.  
She had made a promise a long time ago that she would follow that person where ever they went, she promised that she would never leave or hurt that person, and that she would protect them from suffering, and pain, and betrayal. They both made that promise to each other, and they both wanted to keep it.  
And then the children grew up into young adults where one went to an academy somewhere and lost contact with the other, and forgot the other, leaving the other to fend for herself in a world without her beloved.

The young woman stepped through the door and towards the empty front desk.  
She looked around, "um, hello?" She listened to her voice echo around the well lit room.  
A button lit up on the top of the desk that had the word "press" on it, the woman just looked at it. Was she supposed to press it? Her hand reached out and gently pushed down on the button. 

Then a creak was heard, it echoed down the empty halls.  
All was then silent.  
And then the floor collapsed beneath her and she fell for what felt like 30 seconds before landing very harshly into a pool. 

At first impact she thought her skin was tearing it's self apart, and it felt like the water was ripping off her scalp from her hair.

Slowly sinking, her eyes widened when she saw a massive pile bones and flesh sitting in the bottom of the pool. She frantically started swimming upwards towards the tinted red surface.

Her head broke free of the water with a large gasp for air. She swam over to the edge of the pool and dragged herself out of it. She then crawled over to a corner and hugged her knees, watching for anything to move, waiting for an explanation of some kind, ally kind at all.

A voice echoed around the room, "congratulations on being accepted into our academy, please proceed to the door to your left." The voice cut out and left her with a sickening silence, only filled with her own hard breathing and salt filled tears.

"Oh my love, why would you come here?" She slowly calmed herself and stood up on shaky sore legs, her whole body was sore actually, falling for thousands of feet into freezing water isn't that nice. In fact it would be like hitting cement after your parashoot wouldn't open after skydiving, and then having to swim up so you wouldn't drown, and that's only if you survived the bone crushing impact of the ground in the first place.

She slowly walked toward the door but as her hand touches the door knob she hears a splash behind her, she spins around to see a person slowly sinking to the bottom of the pool to sit with the rest of the bones, he left trails of red water as he sank.

The woman was thoroughly terrified now. She rushed through the door and slammed it closed.

"Specify your name and gender." Something said from behind her, she spun around and looked at a small blue robot on the floor. 

"Sorry?"

"Specify your name and gender." It said again.

The woman looked at the robot like it was holding a knife that was pointed to her.  
"Elpis De Vita, um, female. W-what is this place?" She spoke slowly, as if to figure out what she's saying just before she says it.

"Proceed to room 2121F" it ignored her question and sank into the ground along with a ticking sound that started.  
She started walking down the hall watching as numbers went by, on one side of the hall were rooms labelled 1F, 2F, 3F... And on the other side the labels were 1M, 2M, 3M... My room was going to be a long way away...  
Clunk  
Elpis froze and listened.  
Tick tick tick tick, one tick was one second away from the other, but the ticking was getting louder.  
She turned around to see a wall approaching her, it was red hot like an oven top and made a ticking sound every time it passed a pair of doors.  
She gasped and shook the handle of a near by door, it wouldn't open. 

"Reminder to all students, you are only aloud in your own room at this time. The consequence for disobeying this rule is death, have a good morning." 

She started running back down the hall, her room was so far away. She had to get to get to it before the wall did...  
She watched the side of the hall that had F at the end of the numbers, what was her room number again? 2121F? That was it...  
120F 121F 122F 123F  
334F 335F 336F 337F  
889F 890F 891F 892F

By now she was starting to huff from running from running for about ten minutes straight, so she looked behind her to see no wall following her, she tripped on her own shoe and hit the ground on her knees.

She sat there for a minute gasping for breath before she made her way to her feet and forced herself to keep at leased walking, that wall will catch up to her some time, and if she could make her resting time stretch longer for even a minute or so that would be good. So she forced herself to walk at a slightly faster pace than her normal walk.  
About 2 minutes into walking she started to hear the ticking again so she picked up her feet and started jogging, to tired to actually run.

1231F 1232F 1233F 1234F  
Only a few more hundred to go, come on Elpis, you can do this, you need to keep your promise, you need to figure out if your love survived this place. Those thoughts made her angry and made her run harder. 

1555F 1556F 1557F 1558F  
1996F 1997F 1998F 1999F  
2117F 2118F 2119F 2120F  
2121F here it is, she turned the handle but it wouldn't turn, she just starred at it, was this a joke?

Anger flashed it's way through her again and she backed up a little bit and kicked the door as hard as she could by the handle, it flew open and she tumbled into the room. The door slammed shut behind her. She heard the ticking pass by her room so she just laid there face down. 

"Girls get the new one some water." She heard someone say, she could just nod. Water sounded heavenly right about now.

Pretty soon Elpis was sitting on a soft but small bed drinking water. About 5 other women were surrounding her asking questions.  
Questions like "what was your reason for coming to this facility" and "how were you accepted" and "how were you so far ahead of the hot block" and "what was your life like before this place" general things like that.  
She just drank more water and passed out from exhaustion.

 

Elpis pov  
I woke up hearing "please choose a participant in your area to complete the following challenge." 

I then tried reaching over to hit my alarm but by some stupid chance I felt no alarm. I fought my eyes open to see 5 women arguing over something.  
"No we don't make her go on her first day, we didn't make you go on your first day remember Sue? Who's day would it be if the new comer hand not come?" 

"That would be Sands day."

"Sand it's your day, get up there."  
I heard grumbling and then a door slide shut. I didn't recognize any of the women or the place around me, "What in the world? Where am I?"

"You are at the academy of Baldhild, the place of training ones body and mined. Which to tell you the truth is more like a human testing facility..."  
Baldhild... Where have I seen that before... 

The woman kept talking "none of us know why were are here or what this place is testing but it's more like a boot camp than a school, I haven't seen one text book since grade 11, quite a while ago that was..." The woman drifted off.  
Baldhild... What does that word mean? More like a boot camp, no text books... Bladhild... Oh, where oh were have I seen that... Read that, I probably read that... Baldhild... Sounds German... Baldhild... Oh! Baldhild means "bold battle"!

"Sorry?" Asked the woman.

"Baldhild means bold battle in German, this is a training facility right? For body and minds? It's like a boot camp right? It's a militaristic boot camp, they are training us to be warriors, to be Marines, to be soldiers, if your weak you get left behind to die, you don't listen to orders you die, they have so many people here they don't need the bad ones or the cripple ones or the ones who don't listen." The woman just blinked. "Sorry, I think out loud sometimes."

"Well it's good to know we have some brains on our team now, and it's nice to know what it is we are being killed for, I had been stuck thinking about it for the last ten years now."

I starred at her "ten years? Do they ever let you out?" The woman shook her head sadly, and then she smiled brightly.

"Introduction time! What's your name and age?" That was a quick mood flip...  
"Erm, it's Elpis, Elpis De Vita I'm 21, but who are you people?"

"well I'm Mackenzie but the girls just call me Zee I'm 32 and have been here for ten years, that's Susan but call her Sue she's 24, we all like it when people call us by our nick names, that's Ave right there, she can't say anything because they cut out her tongue on one of her first days here she wouldn't stop talking while the commander was talking but we think shes 22, but don't worry, they have to many people to be doing person on person can at anymore. The girl who's still asleep right there is Reb is 24, and the girl you will hopefully meet later is sand and she's 26 it was her day for the morning challenge and we have a policy that we don't send out the new girl until at leased her third day."

I was overwhelmed, i won't be able to remember any of there names until about a week from now...

One of the women named Sue waved at her and started by asking her a question, "what was your entry test?"  
Erm... "My what?" 

"Your entry test, the way you get aloud into the academy." She specified slightly so I could understand what she was meaning.

"Oh I Er, went up to the front desk and pushed a button that opened up the floor, I fell for maybe 30 seconds before hitting water in a pool... There were... A lot of bodies and skeletons at the bottom of it..." She nodded and pulled out a calendar from under her bed to scribble something down on it. 

"Your one of the only people to survive that... Why did you come here?" 

"I-I was following the trail of a-a friend of mine... She came to register in here and I lost contact with her..." The girls face softened.

"Well if your really lucky you might be able to find her when it's free time. The whole building is aloud to be together during that time. Some use that time to fight, some use that time to collect items from the ground, some use the time to heal, there are a lot of ways to use that time. You could use yours to search for your friend... If she's still alive then it would be a great way to spend your time.... But even if she is alive it will take you a long time to find her, this place has 4534 rooms of just females... With about 5 girls in each room... That's 22,670 girls to search through... And 45,340 people in general to look through... But if you can keep up hope then you might just find her."  
That's a lot of people... But I made a promise and I'm not breaking it, the whole time I'm in here I will search for her. If I die before I find her I will wait for her in heaven. I will not believe that she is dead.

Hope... I have hope... In fact I am hope... I smile and laugh slightly. "You know that's funny, because my name means hope... Hope in life, is the full meaning of my name." 

The women all turned and looked at me. "Well it's a good thing we have hope then." They smiled and continued with whatever it was they were doing.

As soon as the woman apparently named "sand" slid into the room, the other women were on top of her helping her to her bed where sue got a blanket soaked and placed it on top of the woman.  
From what I could see she had burns on her bare feet and her arms were covered in burns to, the ends of her shortish hair were frizzled and chard from a short burst of very hot air or something of the like.  
As soon as the blanket was placed on Sand she was asleep. Everyone went back to their places on their beds and did their usual nothing. 

I slowly walked over to sand and gently picked up her hand to look at it, in places it had black blisters, but the worst of it was in the crease of her hand, like she had to hold onto a hot metal bar. Her feet had the worst of the burns on the balls of her feet.  
Long periods of this and you would have strong hands... I walked over to Zee who just looked at me sadly.

"Can I see your hands?" She looked confused so I repeated my question, she held out her hands, so I took them I'm mine and slowly turned them face up, like I had thought, she had very rough skin, that was mostly scar tissue, even half way up her arm it was mostly white scar tissue.

"This isn't humane, this isn't training, this is torture, this is taking people and bending them to the breaking point and then letting them heal slightly before doing it again and again and again..." She only nodded and laid down on her bed.

A woman behind me spoke, "but this is us breathing and moving and living."

That angered me beyond normal, maybe it was the stress, or maybe, because they thought this-this crap hole meant you were living.

"No, this isn't living, living is growing up, going to school, making friends, going on dates, finding people that hate you or wanting to use you as a toy and then braking up with them, life is finding someone and falling in love with them to the point it hurts to be away from them, finding that person and marrying them, and spending the rest of your stupid lives together, adopting a kid, or have a kid, or have no kids at all and instead travel the world to see sights that this beautiful, ugly, stupid, brilliant world has to offer."  
I took a breath trying to calm down, and putting up my finger so no one would interrupt me.

"Having a life and living are two different things. What your doing now, breathing, walking, fighting so you can fight another day, that is a life. You are not happy. You are alive, yes you are breathing, but what about using your breath to do something amazing that everyone will remember? Doing something with your life is called living... This isn't living this is dying."

"So what can we do to live then? We cannot escape this place, many have tried." Reb said from behind me.  
I was angry and sad and all I wanted right now was some peace and quiet.

"Figure out how to live. That's why I'm here, I'm trying to find the love of my life, and I will spend my whole entire LIFE looking for her in hopes I can LIVE." I slam the door and lock myself into the small grey bathroom we share. I slide against the door, pull my knees up to my chest, and resist the urge to cry. About three minutes later I hear something small clang and on the floor beside me.

It was my locket. I felt around my chest, it wasn't there. How had they gotten it? Had they taken it off me while I was unconscious last night?

I reach over, pick it up, and pull it to my chest. I slowly open the small silver heart shaped locket and look inside. On one side was a picture of me and my love sitting on our couch watching a movie, I remember, the movie was The Rocky Horror Picture Show, it was on our first date and my bratty brother had taken a picture of us cuddling and laughing.  
The second picture was of just my love smiling into the camera with her hair done up in slightly messy curls and a dark red very slimming dress on, we were invited to a cousins wedding so we were all pretty for the ceremony, I had been wearing a dark blue tight yet poofy dress. We were always doing things like that, being opposite in ways that made us closer.  
Tears ran down my face as I closed the locket and fastened the small chain around my neck. 

As the months passed I learned the people's names that lived in this room with me, I learned their likes and their dislikes, I learned who they were before they came to this place, I learned why they acted the way they did. I also learned that you do what your told and you give it your hardest during challenges because if you don't then you get burned, and cut, and bruised, and hurt in unimaginable ways. 

As more and more months passed, I looked and looked and asked and asked if anyone had seen my love, my Aurora, but no one had, and I never saw her.

The months grew into two very long years. My heart grew to be painful and filled with sadness, but I never stopped searching, I never lost the hope that I would someday meet with her again. 

Two years of clinging onto the two photos of happiness, only those photos kept me sane. Through the nightmares and through the thoughts of doubt. The locket was my saviour in the times when i missed her most.

Aurora meaning the dawn of a new day. I remember her as being the light in my life, the never ending beauty, even through bed heads, and bad hair days.  
I remember the times when we thought the world would hate us for being different, for being gay together, but we never had that problem, if we had each other then nothing could go wrong. 

But them she got an email from an academy asking if she wanted to go there for a while to learn, so she left, promising that she would keep in contact and phone lots and come home as many times as she could. I haven't seen her since the day she left me on the side of the road, on that lonely sidewalk two years ago.

She never phoned, she never visited, I never heard from her, so a month after she left I went to the academy to see if I could see her. I only ended up being burned and tortured for two straight years while I fought to find her in my spare time. 

"Hey Elpis, what's this?" Reb asked still fighting to wake up. It was a note. 

"I don't know," I took the paper from her and read it out loud, "the time has come to test yourselfs, death is worthless, survival is key. These following tests will include all people from your room, the last one hanging will run."  
We all looked at each other, this wasn't going to be fun.  
The women were hanging from the bar above the shark tank, the bar would drop very roughly every ten minutes until one of them dropped, the one who dropped would then have to swim the length of the pool and crawl up the rope ladder that hung a few feet above. If they managed that, then they would stay in their room while the others went off to do other challenges to see who the last one to not complete a challenge was, the last person would be sent to a new room with new girls.  
If, during a challenge, a girl dies then the challenges would go on as planned. 

There were a variety of challenges, and only one woman got to do one, every woman would do a different one and the last surviver to do one would be sent to a new room.

The women ground their teeth with effort to hold onto the bar. They didn't want to swim with the sharks.

Ten minutes passed and the bar fell a few feet with a crash, they still held on.  
Ten more minutes passed.  
And then ten more, and ten more after that.

It was drop five that had something happen.

The drops had disturbed the locket around my neck.  
I watched in fear and hatred and sadness as the locket fell from my neck and toward the pool.  
I let out a cry and all my senses left, I gripped the pole and rose my feet above my head, i could hear the women telling me not to but the calls didn't register, I put my feet on the bar and pushed off with all of my leg strength. Throwing me towards the water after my locket. 

I caught it only a few meters under the water and then I started to swim, but I knew I wouldn't make it just by swimming, the shark was faster and it knew I was there, and it knew I was something it could eat.

I popped the locket into my mouth and forced it up against the roof of my mouth, I was not going loosing it.  
I spun around in the water and pushed my foot against an attacking sharks head, it pushed me up and the shark missed, I took the chance to take a breath of air.  
Then ducked back under the water so I could watch the shark. It swam at me again but it knew what I would do so it came at me sideways, I kicked it slightly sideways, only managing to catch my arm with the corner of it's jagged mouth, my arm started bleeding quickly, sending the shark into a frenzy, it turned again and came at me straight and fast, using the same trick as the first time I dodged it, but I also held onto it's top fin, taking me quickly towards the ladder. But I was also becoming aware that I needed oxygen, and quickly.

I pushed up on the shark and swam for the surface, I took a three second brake to take a bunch of deep breaths and look at my roommates who were no longer hanging and instead were standing on the top of a long wall cheering me on. Even ave was yelling at the top of her lungs, she said no words, she was just screaming.

I ducked under the water just in time for the shark to grab me by a foot, it tugged me under water and let go of me and turned to get another shot at me.  
My foot being now useless I could only kick at it with one leg, it went directly underneath me and came directly up at me, it's new tactic confused me for only a second, but that was enough for it to open it's mouth, I grabbed the lips of it and forced my body into the plank position while my legs were resting on the lower half of it's jaw, we sprung into the air and I flew high into the air, I was air born long enough to realize I was right beside the ladder, I reached out and my arm got caught on it, I tensed my muscles so it wouldn't break my arm, but instead ripped my arm out of it's socket, I held back a howl of pain, in fear I would drop the precious locket that sat in my mouth.  
I whimpered in pain as I looked at the shark swimming around the bottom of the ladder, probably wondering where it's lunch went. I sat there for a minute before looking up at the rope ladder and untangling my limp arm from it's grasp. It hurt so badly but it hurt a lot less when it was finally out, it just hung loosely at my side while the other arm gripped the rungs above me. Time to learn how to climb a ladder with one hand.

I pulled myself up with my working arm and legs, forcing my chewed up foot to work. I took a breath and let go with the hand and flung it up grabbing onto another rung a few feet up, I pulled myself up and repeated the process. Again and again, for what seamed like hours, until I was finally able to pull myself up onto the ledge, where I put the locket into my hand and started breathing heavily and silent tears of pain ran down my face. 

About 10 minutes later my roommates came running around the corner to my side, they helped me sit up and they braced me while Sue felt around my shoulder and forced the arm back into place. Boy did it feel a whole lot better when it was back in it's place. I let out a gasp from the extreme pain and then again shortly after for the lack of pain and flopped back onto the ground.

Lights came on telling them they had to move onto the next entry challenge, surprisingly I didn't have to go. I stood up with my good arm that was not only holding the other arm, but the locket as well, and I walked out of the black testing facility and into the hall, where I walked to our room, fell onto a bed and passed out.

When I woke up the next morning nether Ave nor Reb had come back, and I knew they would not be coming back.

There was no morning challenge that day, only a note saying that when they heard an alarm that Sand was to leave the room and find her new designated room before the hot block reached her.

The last moment of our group was of us mourning our fallen sisters, and that of a sister who was to leave us and join her new family.

Then the alarm rang, a holographic number appeared on the wall and she burst out of the room and down the hall. 

We waited, we waited for the new woman to run through our door and become apart of our small family.  
We knew that we would never see sand again. So we waited, and waited, and waited, and wondered if the woman had been killed by the hot block or if she was just a long ways away.  
Zee, Sue and I sat with water and food and wet cloths in our hands, awaiting for anything to come through that door.

And then she did.  
And then she collapsed onto the ground.  
And then I let out a strangled and choked cry.

Because the woman that was on the floor was the woman I was looking for, for two years straight, because the woman on the floor was the love of my life, because the woman on the floor was Aurora Tigernatch.

**Author's Note:**

> I may or may not add something after this, depending on if I get the time, and if I get enough encouragement from readers.
> 
> I don't exactly remember when or why I wrote this, I just happened to come across it in my notes for stories.  
> Thank you  
> CurrlyQ


End file.
